From a purely technical point of view, a bureaucracy is capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency, and is in this sense formally the most rational.

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Presentation on theme: "From a purely technical point of view, a bureaucracy is capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency, and is in this sense formally the most rational."— Presentation transcript:

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From a purely technical point of view, a bureaucracy is capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency, and is in this sense formally the most rational known means of exercising authority over human beings. --Max Weber

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 NOTE NOTE NOTE—most of this excellent ppt is prepared by Sue Ikenberry and is available at for-teaching-the-bureaucracy/ for-teaching-the-bureaucracy/  I just added a few of my slides in for my students

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 For example, who ever heard of The Minerals Management Service (MMS), a bureau within the Department of the Interior…  Until the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon and the resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? But after the BP spill, MMS’s top officials were forced to resign and a reorganization of MMS was undertaken.

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 Americans have a favorable impression of their most recent encounter with the federal bureaucracy (as, for example, when a senior citizen applies for social security), but they have a low opinion of the bureaucracy as a whole.  A Pew Research Center poll found, for example, that roughly two-thirds of Americans believe that government programs are “usually inefficient and wasteful.”

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 Fenno's Paradox is the belief that people generally disapprove of the United States Congress as a whole, but support the Congressmen from their own Congressional district. It is named after political scientist Richard Fenno who discussed this in his 1978 book Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. [1]United States CongressCongressional district Richard Fenno [1]  "Fenno's Paradox" has also been applied to areas other than politics including public schools. For example, U.S. citizens hate the public school system but like the school their children interact with.

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 Americans have a favorable impression of their most recent encounter with the federal bureaucracy (as, for example, when a senior citizen applies for social security), but they have a low opinion of the bureaucracy as a whole.  A Pew Research Center poll found, for example, that roughly two-thirds of Americans believe that government programs are “usually inefficient and wasteful.”

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 Ambitious programs ~ space exploration, social security, interstate highways, and universal postal service would not be possible if the federal government lacked a bureaucracy.  Bureaucracy is found wherever there is a need to manage large numbers of people and tasks.  Every large private organization is also a bureaucracy.  You need experts As one of thousands of services provided by the federal bureaucracy, the National Hurricane Service monitors hurricane activity and provides early warning to affected coastal areas.

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 At present, the U.S. federal bureaucracy has about 4 million employees, who have responsibility for administering thousands of programs. The president and Congress get far more attention in the news, but the federal bureaucracy has a more direct impact on Americans’ everyday lives.

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 The federal bureaucracy grew slowly until the 1930s, when an explosive growth began in the number of programs that required ongoing administration by the federal government.  Source: Historical Statistics of the United States and Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1986, 322; recent figures from U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Figure excludes military personnel.

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 FACT: the number of Federal employees has not changed markedly since the late 1960s.  This fact is deceiving, however, in that the federal government has increasingly contracted some of its work to privately owned firms.  At an earlier time, for example, the U.S. armed forces operated their own food services. Today, these services are operated primarily by private firms. Also, State and Local bureaucracies have grown tremendously.

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President Obama signing an executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal contract workers during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington.

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 The biggest spurt in the bureaucracy’s growth took place in the 1930s. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal included creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and numerous other federal agencies.

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 Three decades later, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiatives, which thrust the federal government into policy areas traditionally dominated by the states, resulted in the creation of additional federal agencies, including the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development

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 Cabinet departments vary greatly in their visibility, size, and importance.  The Department of State, one of the oldest and most prestigious departments, is also one of the smallest, with approximately 25,000 employees . The Department of Defense has the largest workforce, with more than 600,000 civilian employees (apart from the more than 1.4 million uniformed active service members).  The Department of Health and Human Services has the largest budget; its activities account for more than a fourth of all federal spending, much of it in the form of social security and Medicaid payments.

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 The heads of these agencies are appointed by and report to the president but are not members of the cabinet. In general, the independent agencies exist apart from cabinet departments because their placement within a department would pose symbolic or practical problems NASA, for example, could conceivably be located in the Department of Defense, but such positioning would suggest that the space program exists solely for military purposes.

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 These are usually created when Congress recognizes the need for ongoing regulation of a particular economic activity. They develop law-like regulations and then judge whether individuals or organizations are complying with them. The EPA, for example, can impose fines and other penalties on business firms that violate environmental regulations. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversees the stock and bond markets,. In addition to their administrative function, regulatory agencies have a legislative function and a judicial function

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 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insures individuals’ savings accounts against bank failures,  National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak), provides passenger rail service.  U.S. Postal Service, with roughly 700,000 employees These are similar to private corporations in that they charge clients for their services and are governed by a board of directors. But government corporations receive federal funding to help defray operating expenses, and their directors are appointed by the president with Senate approval.

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 Provide advice to the president. Some of them are permanent bodies; examples include the Commission on Civil Rights and the Commission on Fine Arts.  Other presidential commissions are temporary and disband after making recommendations on specific issues Simson Bowles” ~ The Bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform

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 Although the federal bureaucracy is often criticized as being “too big,” it is actually smaller on a per-capita basis than even the smallest state bureaucracy.  There are 83 federal employees for every 1,000 Americans. Illinois, with 103 state employees for every 1,000 residents, has the smallest state bureaucracy on a per-capita basis. Hawaii has the largest— 428 state employees per 1,000 residents.

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 Most civil servants are hired through the government’s merit system. This used to mean a competitive exam, but usually today hiring is done mostly by resume evaluation.  The merit system is overseen by two independent agencies.  The Office of Personnel Management supervises the hiring and job classification of federal employees.  The Merit Service Protection Board hears appeals from career civil servants who have been fired or face other disciplinary action. Students of American history will remember that Charles Guiteau proved that shooting the President is not a viable career path. The Pendleton Civil Service Act resulted from public outrage over the role patronage had played in Garfield’s death

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 Most federal employees have a GS (Graded Service) job ranking. Rankings range from GS-1 (the lowest rank) to GS-15 (the highest).  College graduates who enter the federal service usually start at the GS-5 level (yearly salary of $27,000 for a beginning employee).  Although economists show that federal employees are underpaid in comparison with their counterparts in the private sector, they receive better fringe benefits—and under most circumstances have better job security.

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 Congressional hearings on reviving the Fairness Doctrine came in for much satire by Conservative Cartoonists. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a broad mandate under the Federal Communication Act to regulate various forms of communication. On its own authority, it has developed different regulatory regimes for telephones, broadcast television, cable television, and the Internet. For a lengthy period, for example, the FCC required broadcasters to adhere to a fairness standard; if they aired one side of a political issue, they were also required to air opposing sides. The FCC later rescinded this doctrine. Both of these FCC rulings were based on the same legislative act.

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. Authority given by Congress to the federal bureaucracy to use reasonable judgment in implementing the laws.

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Remember the...

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 Congress lacks expertise: they have it  Congress does not have time to do it all; they have more  It’s not Congress job to work out the details

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The IRS Tea Party controversy erupted when the Treasury Inspector General issued a report finding that IRS employees in the Cincinnati office had targeted certain organizations’ applications for tax exempt status for heightened scrutiny, in particular singling out groups with “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names report

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The delegation of authority Congress gave the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the responsibility for administratively enforcing the law that governs these types of broadcasts. Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1464 provides: “Whoever utters any obscene, indecent, or profane language by means of (broadcast) communication shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both”

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Here’s what the FCC did profanity profanity

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BY THE WAY....The FCC obscenity guidelines have never been applied to non-broadcast media such as cable television or satellite radio. It is widely held that the FCC's authorizing legislation (particularly the Communications Act of 1934 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996) does not enable the FCC to regulate content on subscription-based services, which include cable television, satellite television, and pay-per-view television. Whether the FCC or the Department of Justice could be empowered by the Congress to restrict indecent content on cable television without such legislation violating the Constitution has never been settled by a court of law Since cable television must be subscribed to in order to receive it legally, it has long been thought that since subscribers who object to the content being delivered may cancel their subscription, an incentive is created for the cable operators to self-regulate (unlike broadcast television, cable television is not legally considered to be "pervasive", nor does it depend on a scarce, government-allocated electromagnetic spectrum; as such, neither of the arguments buttressing the case for broadcast regulation particularly apply to cable television).pervasive electromagnetic spectrumbroadcast

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Facts of the Case During a mid-afternoon weekly broadcast, a New York radio station aired George Carlin's monologue, "Filthy Words." Carlin spoke of the words that could not be said on the public airwaves." The FCC received a complaint from a man who stated that he had heard the broadcast while driving with his young son. George Carlin’s 7 dirty words

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Facts of the Case During a mid-afternoon weekly broadcast, a New York radio station aired George Carlin's monologue, "Filthy Words." Carlin spoke of the words that could not be said on the public airwaves. His list included shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. The station warned listeners that the monologue included "sensitive language which might be regarded as offensive to some." The FCC received a complaint from a man who stated that he had heard the broadcast while driving with his young son. Question Does the First Amendment deny government any power to restrict the public broadcast of indecent language under any circumstances? The Constitutional Questions...

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No. The Court held that limited civil sanctions could constitutionally be invoked against a radio broadcast of patently offensive words dealing with sex and execreation. The words need not be obscene to warrant sanctions. Audience, medium, time of day, and method of transmission are relevant factors in determining whether to invoke sanctions. "[W]hen the Commission finds that a pig has entered the parlor, the exercise of its regulatory power does not depend on proof that the pig is obscene” 5 votes for FCC, 4 vote(s) against

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Government shutdown: Does no FCC mean nudity, f-bombs on networks? October 01, 2013October 01, 2013|by Scott Collins government-shutdown-does-no-fcc-mean-swear-words-on-network-tv washington-summit-cruz-fcc-idUSBRE99N1KZ Other FCC “connections” Ted Cruz seeks to press FCC nominee on ad policy During the debt and budget debates that dominated Congress last week, Cruz used his prerogative as a senator to block the chamber from voting on the nomination of Tom Wheeler to lead the FCC, which oversees communications industries in the United States. The FCC has five seats, two of which are vacant.

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 Federal agencies were created for the purpose of promoting, protecting, or regulating a particular interest. Indeed, nearly every major interest in society—commerce, labor, agriculture, banking, and so on—has a corresponding federal agency.  In most cases, these interests are also clientele groups in the sense that they benefit directly from the agency’s programs. Clientele groups can be counted on to lobby Congress and the president on behalf of the agency when its programs and funding are being reviewed.

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The Department of Agriculture is a dependable ally of farm interests year after year. The same cannot be said of the president or Congress as a whole, which must balance farmers’ demands against those of other groups, not to mention international concerns regarding the price of food.

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 Presidents have sought to streamline the bureaucracy in an attempt to make it more accountable.  After the intelligence breakdown in 2001, for example, President Bush commissioned a study of the intelligence agencies that resulted in the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in  Fifteen intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the FBI, now report directly to the director of national intelligence, who has responsibility for coordinating their activities. Despite all this reorganization On Christmas Day 2009 Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear. After his arrest, it was revealed that his father had contacted CIA officials to tell them of his son’s extremism and that U.S. intelligence officials had earlier obtained information tying Abdulmutallab to terrorist groups.

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PRESIDENT: can appoint top-level bureaucrats; fire top level bureaucrats; reorganize executive branch; propose budgets; use executive orders Bush Directive Increases Sway on Regulation President Bush, seen here at the White House Monday, has signed an executive order that in effect increases his control over guidelines the government issues regarding health, safety, privacy and other issues. 1/29/07

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 Presidential Appointments.  For day-to-day oversight of the bureaucracy, presidents rely on their political appointees. The top positions in every agency are held by presidential appoint- tees.

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 There are limits to what presidents can get done through their appointees. The appointees number in the hundreds, and many of them lack detailed knowledge of the agencies they head, making them dependent on agency careerists. (and in some cases their powers are limited by statute, such as SSA).  By the time the Plum Book appointee acquires a reasonable understanding of the agency’s programs, most of them leave.  The typical presidential appointee stays on the job for less than two years before moving on to other employment.

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 October 24, :43 AM  Obama to bypass Congress on mortgages (CBS News)  With Republicans continuing to stall action on President Obama's $447 billion jobs bill, the White House is taking action to help jump-start the economy with the message "We can't wait."  President Obama is going to begin a series of executive branch actions that will not require action from Congress - or the assent of Republicans.  With recovery in the housing market tied to economic recovery, Mr. Obama will today announce what senior officials are calling a "major overhaul" of the government's underused refinance program for federally guaranteed mortgages, in order to aid homeowners having difficult refinancing their housing loan.

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 Oct 29, :01am  Obama’s Weekly Address: ‘We Can’t Wait’ for Republicans on Jobs  In his weekly address, President Obama continued to promote his “we can’t wait” campaign and attack Republicans in Congress for not “paying attention” to the economy.  Arguing that the middle class is losing ground while the rich become richer, the president said his “common-sense jobs proposals” would jump-start employment and set the economy on the right track if it weren’t for Republicans standing in the way.

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Memorize some of these.... Congress won’t.... I will by Or Congress did.... But I will let you get out of it

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More examples of the President bypassing ____________ By brandishing his “We ______ ________” strategy Under what circumstances would a president be more likely to bypass Congress? Here’s the limit to an eo

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January 12, 2009 Democrats Look for Ways to Undo Late Bush Administration Rules By CHARLIE SAVAGEWASHINGTON —CHARLIE SAVAGE Democrats are hoping to roll back a series of regulations issued late in the Bush administration that weaken environmental protections and other restrictions. Potential targets include regulations allowing concealed weapons in some national parks and forbidding medical facilities that get federal money from discriminating against doctors and nurses who refuse, on religious grounds, to assist with abortions. “Congress is going to have to roll up its sleeves and review these midnight regulations,” Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said in an interview, “because it’s clear that they are part of a desire for the administration, as it heads out the door, to put some ideological trophies on the wall.”Ron Wyden

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 The most substantial control that Congress exerts over the bureaucracy is through its “power of the purse.”  Congress has constitutional authority over spending; it decides how much money will be appropriated for agency programs. Without funding, a program simply does not exist, regardless of how important the agency believes it is.  Congress can also void an administrative decision through legislation that instructs the agency to follow a different course of action.

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 Congress also has control through its oversight function, which involves monitoring the bureaucracy’s work to ensure its compliance with legislative intent.  If any agency steps out of line, Congress can call hearings to ask tough questions and, if necessary, take legislative action to correct the problem. Agency heads are required by law to appear before Congress when asked to do so, and the mere possibility of being grilled by a congressional panel can lead administrators to stay in line.  The effect is not altogether positive. Bureaucrats are some- times reluctant to try innovative approaches out of a fear that particular members of Congress will disapprove.

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 The bureaucracy is also overseen by the judiciary.  An injured party can bring suit against an agency on the grounds that it has failed to carry out a law properly.  If the court agrees, the agency must change its policy In 1999, Pigford v Glickman a federal court approved a settlement in favor of African American farmers who demonstrated that the Department of Agriculture had systematically favored white farmers in granting federal farm loans.

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 Federal employees can form labor unions, but their unions by law have limited scope; the government has full control of job assignments, compensation, and promotion.  Moreover, the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 prohibits strikes by federal employees and permits the firing of striking workers. When federal air traffic controllers went on strike anyway in 1981, President Reagan fired them.  There are also limits on the partisan activities of civil servants. The Hatch Act of 1939 prohibited them from holding key jobs in election campaigns. Congress relaxed this prohibition in 1993, although some high-ranking administrators are still barred from taking such positions. Under the Clinton administration the Hatch Act was modified substantially to allow much more partisan activity on the part of most government workers.

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 Bureaucracy is an inevitable consequence of complexity and scale. Modern government could not function without a large bureaucracy. Through authority, specialization, and rules, bureaucracy provides a means of managing thousands of tasks and employees.  Bureaucrats naturally take an “agency point of view,” seeking to promote their agency’s programs and power. They do this through their expert knowledge, support from clientele groups, and backing by Congress or the president.  Although agencies are subject to oversight by the president, Congress, and the judiciary, bureaucrats exercise considerable power in their own right.